Since her family believes she is gone I felt okay about putting her in loving memory. There would be nothing worse than a loved one missing forever. I do believe she has been dead this whole time. Given what the boys said only confirmed what many of us all ready knew.

Last edited by lindamarie on Wed Feb 08, 2012 9:33 am; edited 1 time in total

A funeral service will be held on Saturday February 11, 1 p.m. at The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 13420 94th Ave. E. Puyallup, WA. 98373. A private family interment will follow at Woodbine Cemetery, Puyallup.

The public is encouraged to carpool to the funeral service. Arrangements by Curnow Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 1504 Main St. Sumner, WA. 98390. 253-863-2800.

lindamarie wrote:Since her family believes she is gone I felt okay about putting her in loving memory. There would be nothing worse than a loved one missing forever. I do believe she has been dead this whole time. Given what the boys said only confirmed what many of us all ready knew.

In complete agreement!! So Damned SAD!!!

_________________Prayers for our little HaLeigh Cummings, wherever she may be!!

A funeral service for the boys will be held on Saturday at 12 noon MST at Life Center Church, 1717 S. Union Ave. Tacoma, Wash. To see the program, visit [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (pdf).A private family interment will follow at Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup on Monday.Memorial contributions may be made to any Wells Fargo Bank branch to the Charles and Braden Powell Memorial Fund. Arrangements by Curnow Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 1504 Main St. Sumner, WA. 98390. 253-863-2800.Life Center is affiliated with the Assembly of God church. The Powell boys, and their maternal grandparents are Mormon. Brian Curnrow, the funeral home director overseeing the services, said the memorial will be non-denominatonal. The Life Center sanctuary holds 1,800 people.“Based on the response we’ve gotten on the Internet, I expect it to be filled plus overflow,” Curnow said.Life Center’s pastor, Dean Curry, will officiate. Curry said the church has previously held services or police officers killed in the line of duty and last year had services for one of the U.S. Navy Seals killed in a helicopter crash.“But we’ve never had one of this scope and magnitude,” Curry said Friday. “This family’s story was a tragic event before” the fire Sunday.Relatives for Josh Powell have said they have decided to delay memorial services for Josh Powell to allow the children to be memorialized and “give everyone a chance to deal with this devastating situation one step at a time.”—Nate Carlisle

At Saturday’s memorial service for Charlie and Braden Powell, the tears started when the children in the Life Christian school choir filed onstage and launched into a sweet, innocent version of “Amazing Grace.”

WHAT HAPPENED

Charlie Powell, 7, and his brother, Braden, 5, were killed Feb. 5 in a house fire during a visit with their father, Josh Powell, at his Graham-area rental home.

The boys had come for a supervised, four-hour visit when Josh Powell blocked a social worker from entering the home. He then attacked the boys with a hatchet and set fire to the house, authorities said. All three died.

Josh Powell, 36, was a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife and the boys’ mother, Susan Cox Powell, two years ago.

Susan Powell, 28 and formerly of Puyallup, was reported missing Dec. 7, 2009, in West Valley City, Utah. Josh Powell said the last time he saw her was when he left home about midnight with their boys to go camping in freezing weather west of Salt Lake City.

The boy’s maternal grandparents, Chuck and Judy Cox of Puyallup gained custody of the boys more than five months ago after Josh Powell’s father, Steve, was arrested on charges of voyeurism and child pornography charges.

Josh Powell and his sons were living at Steve Powell’s home at the time of his arrest.

Steve Powell is being held in the Pierce County Jail and did not attend Saturday’s service.

Staff report

More than 1,400 people attended the service at Tacoma’s Life Center Church, but inside the churches circular sanctuary, with its thick carpets, dim lights and plush seats, the hour-long service seemed almost intimate.

“This moment is about two beautiful boys,” said Dean Curry, the church’s lead pastor. “How we got here is well known,” Curry said. “It’s not about the grown-ups today. It’s about the little ones.”

“We felt the support of so many people around the world, of all faiths,” said Cox, his wife Judith beside him at the podium. “It helps us to know there are good people in the world, who will fight against evil.”

The boys’ father, Josh Powell, was in the middle of a custody battle with the Coxes when he torched his rental home in Graham on Feb. 5, killing himself and the two boys. He also had been named a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan Cox Powell, two years ago in Utah.

Several relatives from the Cox family, including Kirk and Jennifer Graves, Josh Powell’s sister, sat in front rows of the church.

All members of the Cox party wore buttons with Charlie and Braden’s photos and the words, “In the hands of God.” They also wore blue and purple ribbons to remember them and their mother.

About two dozen members of the Powell family, including Josh’s other sister Alina and his mother, sat in a balcony.

Josh Powell was not mentioned.

During the service, two teachers shared their memories and read letters from other instructors who had interacted with the boys.

Charlie, 7, was remembered as a kid fascinated with science and insects, often trying to sneak worms or caterpillars into the classroom. He was about to get glasses and loved to write, dreaming up plans to market his books.

“At an early age, Charlie displayed a keen intellect and compassionate heart,” said Tammy Ougheon, Charlie’s kindergarten teacher in Utah. “He was an amazing young man.”

“He is safe in his mother’s arms.”

His younger brother, Braden, 5, preferred cars and trains, teachers remembered, and last Halloween got to dress up as a Transformer. Braden, teachers said, loved to be tickled.

“Braden walked through the doors every day with a big smile on his face,” said Kristie King, an instructor at a YMCA where Braden was enrolled in a pre-kindergarten program.

The boy “had a heart of gold, always wanting to show affection,” King said. “Braden liked to hold his teacher’s hand and not let go.”

Now, King said, “His little spirit lives on in the hearts of all who knew him.”

At the front of the church’s sanctuary, the boys’ bodies lay together in a single casket, an unusual arrangement that church officials said was due to the Cox family’s wishes that the brothers stay together. Throughout the service, speakers expressed the belief that the boys would be reunited with their mother.

The casket was topped with a large flower arrangement that included daisies, roses and sunflowers. Three screens in the sanctuary showed a photo of Susan Powell and the two boys, all smiling.

“We are grateful for the opportunity that we’ve each had to have felt the joy that these two small children have brought into our lives in their short lives,” family member Kirk Graves said in the service’s closing prayer.

Amanda Morse of Seattle was standing outside the church, holding her 5-month son, Ronan. She said she wanted the family to know they weren’t alone.

“It was a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened,” she said.

Dolores Lopez, 59, of Tacoma, wiped tears from her eyes as she left the church.

“I hope they find peace,” she said of Charlie and Braden’s family. “I hope they know God has taken both the boys to their mother. I hope people in the community will cherish their own grand kids. You never think of a child so young taken so fast.”

A private family interment will take place Monday at Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup

I just cannot watch the funeral video just yet. It is hard enough to look at their happy, smiling faces in the pictures. Senseless, just senseless! I just hope that someday soon they find Susan's body, what is left of it, so her family can have closure.

The following is an essay by Kiirsi Hellewell, the best friend of missing Utah mom Susan Powell, about her journey to the Sunday funeral of Powell’s two young boys, Charlie,7, and Braden,5. The boys were killed by their father, Josh Powell, earlier this month. Read the eulogies delivered at the funeral here.

Driving from Utah to Washington is a long, arduous trip—especially with kids. It takes 14 hours if you don’t stop much. If you leave just before midnight, it feels even longer.

My husband John and I packed up our three children and left late Thursday night. It was not good timing for us—so many activities filled our schedule in the week ahead and both of us were sick. But we knew we had to get to Puyallup, no matter what it took. It was like an invisible pull. We wanted to be with Susan’s family and so many who were grieving the loss of those beautiful, precious little boys.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and met up with some friends who had also made the long journey from Utah. With the kids safely in the next room watching a movie, we were finally able to cry together, talk about how angry we felt, share our feelings.

Friday night we gathered with Susan’s family and some other friends to talk, visit and watch the TV shows focused on Susan’s case that night. It was my first chance to see Susan’s parents since all this had happened and I was amazed, but not surprised, to see them doing their best to smile, to talk with us, to share some of their feelings. They are the kind of people who put their arms around everyone and make you feel loved and part of their family, just like Susan always did. Their faith is uplifting and supporting them to help them get through not only losing their daughter and still not knowing where she is, but losing their two sweet grandsons, too.

Saturday morning we woke up early to get ready for the funeral. Driving to the church in Tacoma was a quiet, reflective experience as we watched the police escorts riding ahead to stop traffic as we passed each intersection.

We were taken to a smaller chapel area to visit with Susan’s family and friends while we waited for the funeral to begin. A friend of mine flew in from Maine to come to the funeral. She never knew Susan, but she has helped for the past two years with searches, maps, and many other aspects of the search for Susan. And now she flew across the country to be with us on this day of sadness and grief for Susan’s boys. I knew that so many others from across the world wished they could be there, too.

As I walked into the auditorium where the funeral would be held, I looked up and saw three large screens with pictures of Susan and her boys on them. And I started to cry.

My faith has been a solid anchor to hold onto this week, the one thing that makes this great loss and evil thing that’s happened even the tiniest bit bearable. Because of my deep faith, I know that Susan and her boys are together. But seeing them on the screen like that made it suddenly real: my beautiful friend was finally reunited with her boys, the boys she loved more than life itself and everything else in the world put together. It was hard to stop the tears after that.

The service was fitting and sweet as we heard the boys’ teachers talk about their personalities and share little stories from their lives. I hadn’t seen Charlie and Braden since they were 2 and 4, since Josh abruptly moved them to Washington without giving any of us who loved them a chance to say goodbye. I loved hearing these teachers, who saw Charlie and Braden every day, give a recent accounting of the boys they had become. They sounded like wonderful, smart, creative boys. I ached for the loss of not knowing them these past 2 years and missing out on the rest of their lives.

We had to leave the funeral far too soon, though I really wanted to stay behind and thank the amazing people who had come to celebrate the lives of Charlie and Braden. I’ve made so many wonderful friends the past two years online and really wanted to meet them in person. The police escort led us to another church for a private funeral in the afternoon.

That evening, 12 of us who had traveled up from Utah went to a candlelight vigil in Graham at the site of the burned house where Charlie and Braden lost their lives. I had a lot of time to think on the drive up from Utah, and I had decided I wanted to visit this place. I wanted to stand on the last spot Charlie and Braden stood on. I wanted to visit the memorial I’d seen pictures of on the news, and I really wanted to thank and embrace the people who planned this event.

We arrived too late, unfortunately, to meet most of the 100 people who had come to the vigil earlier. But a few were left. We hugged each other and cried together. And we visited the fence—the barrier police put up to keep people from getting too close to the house. During the vigil last night, visitors wrote notes on cards and tied them to the fence with purple ribbon (Susan’s favorite color). As my friends and I read these rain-soaked messages to Charlie and Braden, we couldn’t stop the tears. But unlike some of the bitter and angry tears of earlier in the week, these were healing tears, just like the beautiful letters to the boys.

A fence has become a shrine to Charlie and Braden Powell. (Kiirsi Hellewell)

One one side of the fence, we could see the burned shell of a house cordoned off by police tape. A reminder of the horrific, evil act that took place there last Sunday. On our side of the fence, there was nothing but messages and gifts of hope, faith and love.

“RIP you beautiful angels. You are now with your mommy again and forever.”

“I am sorry Braden and Charlie” (written by a child)“We spent two years falling in love with you two boys and now a lifetime to remember.”

“May God and your mommy hold you in their warm and loving arms.”“Have faith”“Hug your mommy!”“Forever in our hearts. Your mom loves you”“So thankful you are now home in your mother’s arms what a joyous day it is.”

That’s the image I want to take away with me when I leave this place, not remembering the boys in fear and sorrow, but remembering their sweet, beautiful smiles and their excitement and love for life. I believe Susan was waiting for them with her arms held wide. And for her, that reunion was the most joyous day.

I will not stop looking for Susan until we find her.

Neither will her parents. Their resolve and determination is unshakable. But until then and for the rest of my life, when the sadness threatens to take over, I will close my eyes and imagine Susan and her boys—three beautiful people whose smiles light up their whole faces, their arms around each other, together forever.

West Valley City • Pleasant Green Cemetery in Magna is donating a plot of land for a memorial to Susan Cox Powell and her two sons, West Valley City Mayor Mike Winder announced Tuesday.

Hiram Bertoch, president of the nonprofit cemetery at 9200 W. 3500 South, came up with the idea, and the cemetery board approved the donation of a 15-by-15-foot plot.

A Kearns sculptor, Stan Watts, is donating his time to make a statue, according to Powell’s friend Kiirsi Hellewell, who will head a memorial committee. Hellewell said she likes the idea of a statue of a mother and two sons but no decision has been made yet.

"There’s a real need for everyone to heal," Bertoch said.

A Susan Cox Powell Memorial Fund has been set up and donations can be made at Cyprus Credit Union. Bertoch hopes to have the memorial completed by Powell’s birthday in October.

Susan Powell has been missing since December 2009, when she mysteriously disappeared from her West Valley City home. Her husband, Josh Powell, 36, was the only person of interest in her disappearance. He killed himself and their two boys, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5, on Feb. 5 by setting his rental home ablaze.